Introduction
These comments or suggestions are made in order to provide some guidance to nominators in the preparation of their submissions.

1. The nominees need to be involved in the preparation of the submissions to ensure their accuracy and comprehensiveness.  If the nominees cannot prepare the material themselves, they should, as a minimum, be aware of and approve the strategy of the approach, and the content of the submission.  The nominees are after all the ones who benefit from winning and might feel disadvantaged if they don't.
2. Try to make the motivation fit under the relevant criteria headings. It is tempting to just write the motivation as an essay, keeping the criteria in mind. This can have the effect that there is   nothing more to say when you get to a particular criterion. It then looks as though there isn't anything to say. Or you say "see under X " . This is unhelpful, as the adjudicator will now have to read it again.  Looked at bluntly you are the best person to organize the motivation in the way which can be read easily by the adjudicator. If you can't take the trouble to do that, why should they have to?
3. The Criterion 3, The Outputs, and 4, The Practical Application. These are subtly different because Criterion 3 is meant to describe the outputs of the research process, and should describe what the output is: e.g. a design, a policy, a series of models, a series of prototypes. Criterion 4 must then cover the realization of the work which could be a marketed product.
4. The criteria have been devised for a reason: to tease out the issues around development of research to a point where it has an application and it is then publicized and applied. For some circumstances it may seem that the criteria don't apply. It is a challenge to you to see how they do apply to the work which has been done. Thus they are generic and for some branches of science different words might be better. Don't sell your nominee's work short by being pedantic.
5. Try to keep the responses to each section short and to the point and avoid too lengthy a technical exposition of the science using all the technical jargon of your subject. Give an insight into terms that you have to use.
6. Try to avoid a marketing style of approach. We want to know what has been done and what still remains. The future prospects should be discussed under criterion 9, not as a commentary to the earlier criteria material.  The immediate reaction of an assessor to the statement ...."that the work has the potential to revolutionize this or that ....." is to conclude that at present  it has not done so.
7. Although the award is to the individual or the organization it is the evidence of the contribution we want to know about. So telling us that someone is the foremost scientist or engineer in his field does not do that.  Other awards have a different focus to the NSTF awards and the requirement to complete the motivation reflects how the awards are different.
8. The Commercial or Economic Impact. Every aspect of research and development costs money and it behoves researchers to have in mind what the cost savings could be where their work leads to something. It might mean some analysis but these aspects simply cannot be ignored. In respect of work in the medical and social spheres we have often seen analyses of the costs of treatment, and the loss of income for individuals, and an understanding of the effects of some social concern.
9. Organisations seem to have difficulty with the concept of a contribution to S and T. We need to know the contribution which has been made over the period. Common problems are that organizations focus on their latest product which quite often has not reached the market place and forget about all the other products which have been making money during the period but are no longer seen as cutting edge. These provided the foundation for the latest product and the contribution was probably stunning but if you ignore it how can we recognize it?  Again the future prospects could well be dealt with under criterion 9.
10. The panel cannot sit and judge the quality of any given item of research or science. The only real proof of its contribution is in the technology which resulted and the outputs and the practical application. If there isn't any yet then it might be best to wait until there is.  I would caution then against letting purely marketing people prepare the motivation.
11. It is easier to write the motivation where there has been a strong theme or subject. But it can be done for a package of disparate work. It just requires some careful layout, where the elements can be identified and the work described under each criterion for each element
12. The lists of publications should be annotated to cover the subject and the period relevance. A coloured asterisk or a highlighter can be used.
13. Criterion 8 on education is frequently misunderstood. It provides the place for any contribution to education: identify all the students mentored, or school programmes or general product awareness programmes, as well as funding schemes that go hand in hand with the work.
14. The engineering projects seem to be difficult to present.  It can happen that the uniqueness is in the product and not the science or research.  Thus the motivation overlooks the science lying behind the engineering. Some careful thought and an exposition may reveal that there is actually some unique science behind the work which should be emphasized. If the results have been achieved by a trial and error approach, then it would be better to say so. Similarly if the science is text book science and it is the assembly or application that is unique, then that is what should be claimed.
15. The material given to the panel remains confidential and patent rights can be protected. However if nothing has been published about the work, even descriptively, the nomination loses under criterion 7.  Where we have clear guidelines we can limit what is published by us.

In conclusion the motivation is the key feature. Supplementary material is difficult to manage as the panel doesn't have time to sit and watch videos or interrogate CDs or read books and papers. At best one of us can have make an attempt and report to the others.

Your submissions remain the essence of what we need to be able to make an assessment.